


Red Hood Designs

by Nenagh24 (EverFascinated)



Series: Fictober 2020 [11]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Designer Jason Todd, Drabble, Fashion AU, Fictober 2020, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, No vigilante AU, OC exists to further the plot and be annoying, Photographer Tim Drake, Pre-Relationship, Pseudonyms for Other Reasons AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26956162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverFascinated/pseuds/Nenagh24
Summary: He might hide behind the hood when presenting his lines to the public, but with Jason's looks putting most of the models he hires to shame, Tim figured it was only a matter of time before the designer found himself in front of the camera. Tim just hoped that when that time came he could be the one on the other side of the lens.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Jason Todd
Series: Fictober 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947883
Comments: 13
Kudos: 144





	Red Hood Designs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TaneKore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaneKore/gifts).



> Inspired by [JayKore](https://jaykore.tumblr.com)'s beautiful Jason Todd art over on Tumblr, specifically [this one](https://jaykore.tumblr.com/post/622705429489860608/red-hood-but-make-it-fashion-an-exercise-in) (all of them are so great omg you should take a look if you haven't yet)

"I am stunned, I'm telling you, stunned."

Humming distractedly, Tim narrowed his eyes before adjusting the focus on his camera once again. He’d initially planned on getting a tight shot of the jacket, but the man complaining in front of him kept slouching his way out of focus so a wider shot would have to do. 

It was a shame, Tim thought to himself. The detailing on that jacket was truly stunning, especially with the sheen of the crisp fabric adding that little extra something to the asymmetrical cut.

Too bad the model’s terrible attitude was shining through it all.

"I have modeled for nearly every big name out there," the unhealthily slim man continued, heedless of the tense air in the studio, "and not one of was so unprofessional as to not show up to the shoots for their lines."

As a semi-freelance photographer who frequently worked for said 'big names' with headquarters in the area, Tim highly doubted that. Sure, the lead designers had final say on what outfits would get into shoots and what photos would make it to print, but he couldn’t name one off hand that had the time to just hang around at a photoshoot.

Besides, while it might sound egotistical of him, Tim didn't remember seeing this particular model before. He wouldn’t claim to know every model in Gotham, but he never forgot a face.

Not that he mentioned this aloud. He didn’t like to make assumptions, preferring to quietly gather all the evidence before calling out someone on their lies.

That was at least half the reason he got into hacking in his free time, to be honest.

“I had expected so much more from a rising up and comer.” Dark bangs fell messily across the model's forehead as he gave a dismissive shake of his head, rolling his eyes.

"Don't do that, honey." Kory said, stepping in from one side with a comb in hand. She efficiently swept the stray hairs to one side again, allowing the complementary makeup she applied earlier to be seen once again. "Make sure you don't shift so much, dear. The hairdo was designed for the length you had in your headshots, so we'll have to be more careful with your shorter hair, alright?"

Double endearments, tense shoulders, flat smile. It seemed like she was also annoyed with their newest model, possibly even more than Tim was.

"What was your name again?" Roy asked from where he slouched against the wall, his cap pulled down against the lights he set up earlier that afternoon.

“Ryan.” The model replied, looking the capped redhead up and down, almost sneering at his unkempt look.

“Can you look here, please?” Tim was deeply unimpressed at the model’s continued distraction. This was getting ridiculous. How did this guy get past the casting calls?

“Any time, any day, handsome.” A flirty wink joined Ryan’s ‘witty’ retort and Tim struggled to keep a professionally blank look on his face instead of giving in to a much needed eyeroll of his own.

He managed three more shots before Ryan was turning away again, this time towards the final occupant of the room.

“Even a new face like you gets it, right? It’s just rude for a designer to not even meet his models, don’t you think?”

Elbow deep in the clothing racks, it took a moment for Jason to realize he was being addressed. When he did, he slowly turned to inspect Ryan with steely teal eyes.

“Excuse me?”

Well, that was the last shot Tim was likely to get. 

Sighing, he lowered his camera and let it hang heavily around his neck. He sat back on his heels to watch the show, arms crossed and resting loosely on his knees as he looked between them in his crouched position.

People assuming that Jason was just another model was common, but it ignored a lot of little things that Tim thought were pretty obvious. Like the fact he never wore any of the designs that showed up on the runway or in magazines.

Ryan was visibly taken aback at the question's dark tone, he bounced back quickly enough.

“The designer, the mysterious ‘Red Hood’,” here he used his fingers to provide the quotation marks, “doesn’t even supervise his photoshoots. Can you believe the nerve of that guy?”

Behind Ryan’s back Roy rolled his eyes so hard that Tim was afraid he’d hurt himself and Kory let loose a series of fake sounding coughs. Not that he could blame them. Tim nearly drew blood from biting his tongue to keep from laughing.

Jason Todd, the man who just a handful of people knew was behind the mask of Red Hood, frowned at Ryan for a long moment before his eyes slid to Kory who was just pulling herself back together.

“We’re done here.”

“What?” Ryan sounded truly baffled even as Kory stepped up and started leading him back to the changing area. “But this is only the first outfit, we can’t be done.”

“Just hang the clothes back up how you found them, we’ll take care of the rest.” She instructed, clarifying nothing.

Ryan sputtered at her before turning to look at Jason. At least, that’s what Tim thought he tried to do. With Kory’s arm still guiding him, the man barely managed to look over his shoulder.

“Who are you?” He demanded just before disappearing behind the curtain. His hand reappeared for a brief moment, but Kory was on it before he could pop back out.

“Let me help you with that.” The smile on her face was radiant and her tone brooked no arguments as she followed him back into the changing area.

Tim’s shoulders shook as he tried to stifle his laughter. 

After all the trouble they went through to get everything set up for the day only for Ryan to waltz in, mess it up, and force them to do most of it over again from scratch, he simply found the muffled argument behind the curtain more amusing than concerning. 

He wasn’t the only one, though Roy didn’t even bother hiding his amusement as he snickered from his place against the wall.

Jason threw a narrow-eyed look at Roy before shifting it to Tim who fought his way to a straight face in record time. Holding his hands up to silently convey his innocence, he tried to keep his lips from twitching back into a grin. Huffing sharply at that, Jason eyed him a moment longer before turning back to the rack he’d been digging through.

“There we go!” Kory’s perky tone didn’t bode well for Ryan. Both Roy and Tim watched as she dragged the redressed and protesting man across the room towards the door. “Thank you for your time, you’ll see the payment for services rendered in the mail within the next two weeks.”

While Ryan seemed baffled at how the door opened in front of him when she was supporting half his weight from behind, Tim was more impressed that there weren’t gouges in the floor from where the model tried to stop the forced march. A little misdirection was nothing compared to the friction burns those shoes should have caused on the exposed cement flooring. 

Maybe it was some kind of treatment? But was it on the shoes or the floor?

“Hey!” Ryan’s protests became muted as the solid wood door shut and locked between them. The words ‘contract’ and ‘lawyer’ were the only two Tim could pick out from between the intermittent banging.

“You guys aren’t going to get in trouble for doing that, right?” He asked, standing and linking his hands to stretch them above his head.

He’d done multiple shoots for Red Hood over the last few months, especially after he fumbled his way through letting them know he knew who was under that helmet of a mask. Kicking models out wasn’t something they usually did, though usually the models were more professional.

“Nope.” Roy confirmed, making a face as he scratched his neck. “We got a lawyer of our own to ensure those work contracts were air tight, especially for those who tried to use them to try and figure out confidential information.”

Like the terribly unsubtle attempts to find out who was under the red hood like Ryan kept pestering all of them for.

“How the fuck did he get on one of our contracts anyway?” Came Jason’s voice from somewhere inside the multiple rows of clothing. His head popped out about a third of the way down the closest one to look at Kory. She, in turn, gave a pointed look to Roy which practically read ‘I told you so’ in letters a mile high.

Roy held his hands up as if he was being held at gunpoint.

“Hey, you said we needed to start using an agency.” He reminded one or both of them. It was hard for Tim to tell which because neither even flinched. “That was the first one any agency could send us.”

“Which agency was it?” Tim asked, curious. There were more than a few in town, but most had higher standards than that.

“Uh,” Roy made a face before pulling his phone from his pocket. “Hang on, it had that crazy name.”

Crazy name? Frowning, Tim ran through all the ones that he knew and tried to figure out which of the eccentric names Roy would think was the most ‘crazy’.

Wait.

“You don’t mean Our Cam, do you?” Why an agency would want to mimic the name of an infamous insane asylum, Tim would never understand.

“That’s the one!” Roy confirmed, pointing at Tim.

Kory pressed her fingertips to her temples and let out a long sigh. 

It was times like these that reminded Tim that Kory was a veterian in the industry while Roy had switched over from helping make films specifically to join Jason’s startup. Ryan wasn’t an exception to the types of models the agency sent out, but instead a shining example based on the horror stories he’d heard from others who’d attempted to use their services.

“That agency can barely hold contracts for  _ department store catalogs _ .” Tim ensured that his tone made it clear exactly what he thought of fumbling a bar that low. “It’s no wonder they jumped at the opportunity.”

A thought suddenly occurred to him and he snorted. That caught even Jason’s wandering attention and he stepped more fully out from his designs at the sound of it.

“What?” Jason asked, pushing some of his hair back from where it had fallen in his face. 

Tim’s eyes caught for a moment on how the white strands made the wave of his dark hair more obvious, especially where they met the fade of Jason’s undercut, before he forced himself to look away and meet Jason’s questioning gaze.

“I just realized that the ‘big names’ he was talking about were probably department stores and not designer labels.” That got a reaction from the rest of them, Jason letting out a snort of his own as Kory’s low chuckles joined Roy’s sharp crack of laughter.

Once they all settled down, Roy made a show of removing Our Cam from his list of agencies before turning back to the space they’d set up for the shoot.

“Alright, I’ll do better research next time, but what are we going to do about this?”

“I could text some of the people we’ve used in the past,” Kory offered, but the worried line on her forehead spoke volumes. “It’s really short notice though.”

“If I’d known about how many fucking deadlines fashion had back when I started I would have had some second thoughts.” Jason commented, scrubbing another hand through his hair in frustration as he walked over to see if Kory got any quick responses.

That wasn’t true. Tim might not have known about all this from its inception, but Jason was nothing but thorough in his approaches to challenges and there was  _ no way _ he hadn’t known that the industry was extremely fast paced before joining it. Honestly, at times it was blatantly obvious that Jason loved the challenge of coming up with things at speed, pushing them from design to fulfillment within days just to show that he could.

Tim blinked, losing his train of thought as he noticed the addition to Jason’s usual look. Now that Jason was closer, the thin line of red around his eyes looked familiar.

It was the same one Kory had applied to Ryan earlier that day.

There was a thought.

“Why don’t you give it a try?” The question tumbled out before Tim could stop it. 

Not that he was sure he wanted to. His fingers had itched to photograph Jason for years and he routinely found a few candid shots of him among the rest of the ones containing their models whenever he was hired by the Red Hood.

But the chance to do a full shoot with Jason…

Tim bit the inside of his lip as he waited to see how the suggestion would be taken.

Teal eyes blinked at him once, twice before Tim raised a single brow and Jason’s look sharpened at the implied challenge.

“Maybe I will.”

They both ignored Kory’s knowing look as they stared at each other just a moment longer, Tim’s lips curling into a satisfied smile while Jason returned the look with a smirk of his own.

Within the next two hours Jason showcased all seven looks, making the afternoon far more productive as he used the same amount of time it had taken them to get Ryan into one to finish everything. Snapping away at the seemingly effortless looks the designer threw around, Tim had needed to swap his memory cards twice before the shoot ended for the day.

Of course the makeup that inspired his question didn’t matter as Jason’s face would need to be edited out of each shot, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t appreciated. 

Later that night while making the usual edits, it took nearly an hour but Tim finally picked out his favorite shot. It wasn't one that would make the final cut as it was more of a headshot than a full body shot, but he found himself coming back to look at it over and over again.

It was a photo he’d snapped as Jason stepped into frame, his face almost completely in profile as he obscured half of his own Red Hood logo on the wall behind him. The symbolism was great, but it was the way those red rimmed, teal eyes were looking directly into the camera that really spoke to Tim.

He bit his lip as he studied it in the dim light of his home office. 

Perhaps, if he asked nicely, he could get Jason to model for him again. Maybe then he’d have the guts to ask where this heated look had come from and who it was meant for.

He didn’t like to make assumptions, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Excuse me as I trip into another fandom and pairing without reading a majority of the source material. Hopefully everyone is at least recognizable (minus Ryan who is just an OC created to be a butt)
> 
> This AU is big in my head so if people like it I may continue writing it out.
> 
> Prompt: I told you so


End file.
